In the Minds of Men
by KaruKageXP
Summary: After encountering difficulties in a case, Sherlock finds himself in a coma. Meanwhile, in the Wizarding World, Harry continues in his battle against Voldemort while in his fifth year at Hogwarts when his mind is also placed in a coma. This is the story of how these two minds meet in curious circumstances and how the two find where they fit in the universe.
1. Prologue

**Prologue- Trouble usually finds me **

_**A cave— turn twentieth century **_

_Merlin sat on the stone; his glamour had been dropped once he'd entered. The last Great Dragon sat in the depths of the cave below. The Cave reminded Merlin of the original cave he'd met the Dragon in. At least his old friend was no longer physically imprisoned; still once the sanctuaries had been established the last true Dragon had gone underground again. He preferred it to the idiots who "ran" the reserves. Merlin didn't blame the ancient being. _

_ He had long ago dropped out of the magical community, solely watching from afar, he'd felt no reason to truly be a part of either community since… Well, since his other half had passed. _

_ "You've dropped the glamour, ancient warlock," greeted the Dragon. Merlin gave his lopsided grin to his old friend. The great wings beat a furious wind that brought the gigantic being to the upper level where Merlin sat. The Dragon, once settled, gave an amused yet curious look at the Warlock. _

_ "You've come for a reason," he said. Merlin knew it wasn't a question. _

_ "I've been watching the work that… Arthur and I did. I know you feel the magic, or rather the lack there of, as I have. Most of the other magical beings have—I'd ask the druids but they've all gone. Something went wrong, back then in Camelot," Merlin said. _

_ "What do you plan to do about it, dear warlock. Camelot is centuries past, and even you and I cannot manipulate time to that degree," said the Dragon. _

_ "I have concluded that we didn't create Albion. You know, don't you, that he died too soon. We didn't actually complete our destiny—if we had he wouldn't be dead or I wouldn't be breathing. So Albion was not truly created," Merlin said. He was proud that he'd kept himself from choking; even after centuries he still felt his heart crack at the mention of Arthur or his death. His missed his other half more than any could understand, and the pain had only mounted as the eon had passed by. _

_ "I know, he is the 'Once and Future King' after all. However, you did not answer as to why you are here. Do you have a plan to rectify this…predicament. Merlin gave another cracked smile. He rarely smiled at all since Arthur's death, and even then they were broken and shoddy imitations. _

_ "I do have a plan. A way to fix things, to set them right. I require your assistance, however. This will take a lot of magic," said the immortal wizard. _

_ "May I ask what this magic will be used for?" _

_ "My 'death'." _

**Modern Day—St. Bart's hospital, London **

John Watson sat by a bed in the critical care unit of the hospital. The patient was stable, which was why he was allowed to sit in the room. Sherlock lay in the hospital bed, dressed in the white patient's clothing and tucked under the linen. His arms connected to multiple medical monitors and devices to assist in his healing.

John wasn't actually worried about his…Friend's physical injuries. Well, he was actually quite worried about them, but they weren't his priority. Sherlock was also injured in a mental sense; and _that _cared John shitless. More than anything else in his life ever had; even when he'd nearly lost his life under that hot desert sun.

They'd been on the trial of a serial killer; one who tortured and murdered attractive gay men. Sherlock had been in the flat, physically as he had retreated to his mind palace that day, and John had gotten called to the surgery. When John had returned it was to an unconscious Mrs Hudson and an empty flat. The sheet Sherlock had draped himself in strewn on the floor.

They'd found Sherlock near twelve hours later in the cellar of the mad man's house. In truth, John had found it first, mostly because he was the only one who understood Sherlock's vague clues, and had subdued the killer—Mycroft would most likely be getting involved to keep John out of the courts for it. Lestrade and his men had shown up when John called for emergency medical assistance.

Sherlock had been tortured with a lot of zeal; if the extent of his injuries was anything to go by, John had never seen anything like it. Sherlock had shown a slight response at John's voice but had lost consciousness after that. John had done his best to stem the flow of dark blood that had flooded out of the consulting detective.

Mike Stamford had told John three hours ago, when he'd been allowed into Sherlock's room, that there was no permanent damage; some scaring was very possible, but nothing debilitating. The pain, though, that Sherlock had experienced in those twelve hours of hell on earth was a different matter. The pain had been so great, they theorised, that Sherlock's mind couldn't handle the sensory intake and had induced a coma to stop the pain; that's where most of the serious damage laid. In the detective's most valued organ.

So here John sat, three hours later, at Sherlock's side; watching his dear friend lay still for the first time since John met him. Well, there had been Sherlock's "death" three and a half years ago; but that didn't count because Sherlock had had a hand in that. This was real; his friend was lying there, he may never wake, and John was helpless.

**Ministry of Magic, London-same day as Sherlock's torture **

It wasn't that Harry was purposefully terrible at occlumency; it was just that his mindscape was organised as a mind-castle. Harry, for his part, blamed it on his childhood obsession with King Arthur and Camelot. It would have been perfect for protecting his-self, if he hadn't ended up modelling it on Hogwarts. He hadn't meant to, it had just sort of happened.

So now here he was, in his mind castle trying to find the invader; one Dark Lord Voldemort. The ministry had transfigured itself into s major cluster fuck when the snake faced bastard arrived. Now Harry was, technically, possessed and Harry just knew Voldemort was doing something very naughty with his body—he was sure of it.

What made it worse was that there was something else in his mind; he'd been aware of it ever since he'd created his mind castle to escape to from the severe beating Vernon had given him. Originally it had just hidden beneath the castle, but after second year the hidden room had turned into the Chamber of Secrets; and Harry flat out refused to go through something like that again. Yet once Voldemort invaded his mind, he'd felt the Chamber door open, so he technically had two enemies to deal with.

_I'm starting to think I should have just tried to get rid of it, when I realised I could get in, _Harry thought bitterly as he crept through the shadows of the corridor towards the Great Hall. He felt Voldemort's presence there and was approaching with great caution. Suddenly there was a large hiss from behind and Harry dived out into the light just in time to escape the strike of a mind basilisk. He ended up landing in front of the grand staircase.

"Harry Potter," came a hissy voice from the doorway to the Great Hall. There stood the Darkest Lord since, perhaps, Morgana herself. The snake like warlock eyed the basilisk with curiosity before realisation dawned upon his features.

"I see, I must have made an unintentional Horcrux that night. Interesting, _**Kill him,**_" Voldemort hissed. Harry didn't know what a Horcrux was, but he figured it had something to do with the night his parents died and why he seemed connected to the evil bastard.

Harry rolled as the snake struck and got to his feet. The younger warlock ran up the stairs. The snake striking out, taking chunks of ancient stone and marble with its actions. Harry didn't have his wand, he'd never needed it in his mind castle—so it was somewhere in the physical world. To be honest, Harry only needed the wand to help channel his power; otherwise his magic was just too much for him to control. It was too strong and to wild for him to use by himself—which was why he was in this predicament to begin with. He'd been too busy watching the amazing control of the Light and Dark lords held over their magic.

_I don't really have a choice, though. Not if I want to survive, _Harry told himself as he ran through the halls of the castle. Harry didn't know what spell to use. The fangs of the serpent snagged upon his robe, because whilst in the castle he tended to wear a non-descript uniform. Harry felt himself being yanked back towards death, but he just barely escaped by sliding out of his robe. He ducked and rolled to a stop; allowing momentum to carry the gigantic serpent further down the corridor before it turned. Yet Harry was moving as soon as it passed him; getting to his feet and running in the direction he'd come.

Harry ran down the stairs and along the second floor corridor; maybe if he got to the headmaster's office, the central control to his mind, he'd be able to gain back control. He never found out if that theory was correct, however, as Voldemort stood in front of the gargoyle. Harry skidded to a stop, his heart thumping faster than a sentry jackrabbit.

Harry could feel the fiend fyre Voldemort had set below; leaving ruins in its wake as it spread through out his lower levels and the courtyards. Voldemort gave a soft, and vicious smile at the young warlock as they heard the basilisk Horcurx slither closer to them. Harry was now trapped, nowhere to go without death reaching him.

Harry's only thought was to purge his mind of the fyre, the Horcrux and the dark bastard before him.

_I just want them gone, I want them purged from my castle! _Harry screamed to himself. His magic ran rampant at the thought; killing curse green flames tinged with gold sprung forth from Harry's centre. He heard a loud hiss and a high-pitched wail of pain as the flames engulfed the dark pair. The incandescent flames didn't stop, however, running on the pure emotion of Harry they swept through the castle; wiping out the fyre below but destroying much itself. Harry lost slipped into darkness from the sheer force of his magic.

When the fifteen year old awoke, he noticed scorch marks everywhere, realising he'd released pure magic in an effort to be rid of his invaders. He turned his head to see the left, to see the entryway to the headmaster's office.

_That… is just typical. Just bloody typical, _he thought when he looked.

His purging flames had destroyed the staircase to office. He was now stuck in his mind castle, with no way out.

**The Ministry of Magic entryway, London- after the purging **

Everyone was gather in the entryway; the battle in the execution chamber having ended and ministry officials having arrived just moments before. Harry had been twisting and writhing on the floor in agony for near three hours; being possessed by Voldemort was legendary for the brutal pain the evil man put his victims through. None could get near him to help as it was dangerous to the boy. Suddenly Voldemort ripped himself from the child; an agonising screaming ripping from both their throats.

The journalists present snapped pictures of the returned Dark Lord as everyone else gasped. All too frozen with terror to do anything. Before even Albus could react a bright, gold tinged incandescent green light of pure magic rippled from Harry Potter's arching body. Voldemort let out another scream as the magic surrounded him and ripped his body apart.

When the magic dissipated there was no Dark Lord anywhere, only shredded, smouldering robes where he had once stood. Harry Potter, the boy-who'd-slayed-the-Dark-Lord was still and prone on the floor. No tension, no movement; they would have all thought him dead except for the shallow rising and falling of his chest.


	2. To A Great Mind, Nothing is Little

**Chapter 1: To a great mind, nothing is little**

**In Sherlock's Mind Palace**

Sherlock was thrust unceremoniously into the foyer of his mind palace, the stone floors cold and hard against his skin, as he lay sprawled upon the floor. Through the large glass windows moonlight shone, giving the open room soft shadows. Candles lit up the otherwise dark palace, illuminating other parts of the majestic building.

_Strange. I've never experienced nighttime within my mind palace before, _Sherlock thought slowly getting to his feet.

_Hm, I'll look into it later, _Sherlock thought, straightening his blazer. The differences to his mind palace were subtle, but his trained eyes noticed eye every anomaly in his mind palace. He moved to the entrance cupboard, where he stored all data regarding immediate events; waiting for him to shift through and categorize it all at his earliest convenience. As soon as he opened the door, flashes of pain and maniacal laughter flooded him.

_Ah, the insecure businessman; secretly gay, raised by conservative parents, judging by the self-loathing over his sexual orientation. Strong, big boned, rather artistic in his torture methods. He'd been mutilating gay men for the last three months. It was rather simple. He was slightly clever in his abductions; still nothing compared to the cabby. The cabby had talked me into going with him, the manic torturer had to drug me first, _Sherlock shifted through the events. The torture he'd suffered had been brutal, but the pain was muffled; indicating his mind had removed itself from the circumstances. Sherlock huffed in annoyance and continued shifting through the data.

_Ah, here's where my torture session is. Then John rescued me; I knew he would figure out where I was, _No you didn't, popped into his headat his unspoken comment. He shook his head in denial that it had been hope rather than certainty he'd felt in those… Twelve hours of agony.

_Then I ended up here... Evaluation of transport: severe damage, possibly permanent. Requires concentration, time and no outside stimuli. I'm in a self-induced coma to maximize effective recovery. Dull. It will be dreadfully boring in the mean time. The coma does explain the change in time, at least. It seems when my transport shuts down it becomes night. It's logical at least. _

Sherlock closed the cupboard door and began ascending the winding stairs. He walked purposefully to the grand library. The detective went straight to his section on cases, and placed the new data into its corresponding book. The words _case closed_ and the date elegantly scrawled themselves under the original title. The experience of the torture he placed in a separate book entitled _Personal experiences: unpleasant_ that was further towards the back of the library, in his private section where he didn't often trespass.

Once finished, Sherlock made his way to the main ballroom a level below the library. The room was baroque in style, with massive bay windows that lead to a marble balcony; offering a breath-taking view of crystal blue lake. The ballroom was where all his music was stored. Sherlock walked to the center of the room.

He brought his hands up in front of him, and the notes appeared before the detective. He planned to continue his composition entitled _John_. Sherlock had been composing it ever since the man limped into his life, but was having trouble finding a proper theme to accurately represent the complex human. There was something that made the doctor different, something that made him special. A mysterious quality that made him the exception to Sherlock's usual treatment of the rest of his species.

He dismissed the percussion part with a wave of his hand. _Too obvious,_ He huffed. Instead he put the metric accents in the string section with the cellos and violas playing on the beats while the violin and clarinet exchange the theme. _Clarinet? No, trumpet, perhaps. No, French horn._ There was a buzzing in his mind that prevented him from focusing on the composition. He placed the composition aside and brought forth an older piece instead. He picked up his violin from its stand beside him and began playing the theme that represented the chase and the adrenalin-filled sensation that began his career as a consulting detective.

The music was strange. It felt muffled directly around him, but it echoed as if the surrounding areas outside could hear the notes better. He went to the window and for the first time noticed that the forest was darker, more wild, and the lake more muddied than before. Sherlock dismissed his violin and left the ballroom with a flourish.

Sherlock made his way past the unused private chambers on the uppermost floor that contained all of his personality traits. He never entered there, nor slept on the bed that existed in there. He instead entered his lab that occupied the north tower, he grabbed a flask before swiftly descending the stairs. He briskly walked towards the body of water. Sherlock opened the tube and filled it with the murky water, swirling it about to try and determine what had caused his subconscious to become so dark and obscured. He noted that the murky water almost seemed foreign, as if it was not truly his subconscious obscuring the clarity. Busy analyzing the tube, Sherlock hadn't noticed the elegant boat that crept through the mist. His eyes flicked upwards and caught sight of it.

_A boa? I didn't make this, why has is appeared, where'd it come from? Am I to just climb in and let it sweep me to the great unknown?_

He touched the boat with caution, and found it secure. He gingerly climbed in and found himself being taken from the shore. The boat was silent and powered by nothing he could detect. The mist Sherlock boated through was opaque and seemed to be endless; as did the lake he travelled across.

Sherlock's boat persisted onwards in total silence. After a few moments, a grand building arose out of the fog. A large castle reminiscent to one of a fairytale, although it looked as if abandoned. A tower was crumbling down; stain glass windows were shattered, giving a haunted look to the fortress. There were even scorch marks from some strange internal blast visible from the distance. Even ruined, however, it was breath taking. Sherlock cautiously stood in the boat and as he got a better view, he could see the river bank where a boy who appeared early adolescence lying in the grass.

"What did you do to my lake?" he called out to the boy. The child scrambled to his feet as Sherlock reached the shore.

_He's malnourished, cramped living quarters, causing height deficiency—age approximately fifteen or sixteen years. Heavy set sibling? No, he's a cousin, grossly obese, not a close relationship; although they've lived together more than a decade. He was orphaned at young age, sent to live with immediate relatives—no parents would feed one child and starve the other, not to mention those rags. Writes with a quill—based on placement and size of callouses on thumb, index and right ring finger—good penmanship due to lack of ink smudges on right hand. Unknown callouses on thumb and index finger; not consistent with any tools I know of. I need more data. Recent scar on right hand, old scar on forehead—both purposefully done? The bags under his eyes indicate insomnia, PTSD? Could be from trauma. Not recent, though, but life altering. Most likely from his parent's death. Car crash? Unlikely as the shape is very distinct, almost intentional, and could not have been caused by any car part in a normal car crash._

It was as he finished his deductions of the boy before him that he noticed the glowing ball floating near the child who he now realized looked eerily similar to him._ What is that? Some extra essence or soul? I need more data_. As soon as he finished his initial observations, Sherlock stepped off the boat and onto the shore. The boy scoffed at him.

"Your lake?—"

Sherlock stopped listening as he realized that was probably not the best way to approach a wary teenager he'd just met in his subconscious.


	3. That Which Makes it Whole

**Chapter II-That Which Makes it Whole**

**St. Mungo's hospital-three days after the ministry incident **

`The mind healers of the hospital had been having a hell of a time trying to assess the damage to the boy that the whole wizarding world owed a large life debt to. Destroying the Dark Lord with a wave of pure light summoned by magic; the last person known to do anything like that had been Merlin himself when he'd summoned lightening itself from the skies.

They had finally discovered that is wasn't just Harry Potter's mindscape that had been damaged during the possession. It seemed that the purpose in the possession had been to shatter the child's mind itself. As far as they could tell, the goal had been accomplished very well. The lead healer of the floor walked into his office and sat before his former year-mate; Poppy. She had volunteered to talk to the healers as Dumbledore's representative; with Minerva as a companion.

"Poppy, Deputy-Headmistress, I-I'm not sure how I can best explain what we've diagnosed. It's rather complicated," Healer Martin said. He had no doubt Poppy would, she had to know a bit more than just the basics of mind healing in order have her occupation. However, to try and explain this to a transfiguration professor who didn't even know a lot about _mind magic_ was what worried him. The usual stern matron gave an encouraging smile.

"Why not start with the basic concepts and then discuss how it relates to mind magic and Harry," she said before turning to Minerva. "I know you probably don't appreciate this, but if you want to understand what has happened to the dear lad you need to know these basics."

"I understand, please, continue with your healer Martin. I know how ignorant I am in this subject, if you must explain basic terms do so," said the head of Gryffindor. She hated not knowing anything about this topic. She'd be reading up on it after this, without a doubt.

"Alright. First there is the mind, you know about that, however some people create what we in healing term mindscapes. These are places that organise the information in the mind; it's like creating a library of sorts inside your mind, a place where you have everything you'd ever read or been taught, even sensory information can be stored there, so you never forget anything. Occlumency uses mindscapes for defence, a place you know like the back of your hand but any other would be lost in—not to mention the traps, false doors and other defensive accessories you can add to your mindscape. Legimency tries to extract information from the mind; and the best mages at it are the ones that can navigate foreign mindscapes. The Dark Lord was known to just destroy a mindscape as an addition to whatever he was in your head for, understand so far?"

"Are you saying Harry Potter had a mindscape and the dark lord destroyed it?" Minerva asked as she nodded her understanding. Healer Martin shook his head.

"Young Harry does have a mindscape, they're created for all sorts of reasons, I could hazard a guess—based on his school healing file—as to what his was used for, and his was most likely constructed during childhood and appears to be quite elaborate," Martin said. Poppy frowned.

"What do you mean by elaborate, mindscapes are just a room in one's mind, aren't they?" asked the matron. Minerva looked at her friend. So did Martin.

"Usually they are, Poppy. However, some people—for whatever reason—don't just construct a single room. They construct large pieces of architecture; organising their _entire _mind to fit within their mindscape. You normally see it in mages of immense power, it takes not just time and energy, but a lot of power and motivation to perform such a feat of making a mindscape of a single room. Elaborate mindscapes take many times more than such. Harry's, it appears, encompassed his entire mind. Nothing was left out. That's where this becomes tricky," Martin explained.

_His entire mind was a mindscape? Does he really have such power? _Poppy asked herself.

"What do you mean it becomes tricky? What did Voldemort do?" Minerva asked. She rarely used the name, finding it left a filthy aftertaste on her tongue. It showed how worried she was for the young lion they spoke of that she uttered it.

"When the Dark lord started to damage Harry's mindscape, he wasn't just damaging the mindscape, he was damaging different parts of Harry's mind. A dark warlock known for his prowess in the mind arts; he had to have known what he was doing when he started destroying things inside of Harry's mindscape."

"So he has extensive damage?" Poppy asked.

"Yes," was all the healer said. Minerva furrowed her brow.

"Is it permanent? You can heal it, can't you?" asked the professor. Harry would pull through, the little lion always had before.

"I'm afraid it's not that simple. I told you before this is complicated. We've no idea what Harry Potter's mindscape is like, we don't know exactly _what _damage occurred nor its severity, and what's more important is that we've no way of healing the young man."

"Don't tell me that his…"

"Yes, Poppy, his central nervous portion was at the very least cut off from inside the mindscape. Harry Potter is stuck inside his mindscape and we've no way of getting to him. At this point, the only one who can heal the boy is himself—and he has no training. At most he may, _may_ be able to reconnect himself to the outside world. However, this is a very unlikely possibility."

"So what? He'll die?" Minerva asked as her heart slowly froze as realisation led to overwhelming fear.

"His magic will sustain him for a while, we've no idea how long. We're currently trying to ascertain how large his magical core is; but the tests all require response from the patient and Harry Potter is not able to respond. At best we can guess it's abnormally large and he may have years, or months. We—we just don't know. I'm sorry," Martin said. He'd been through this often with cases where they had little to no hope, where he had to tell the loved ones they needed to brace for the worst. That it could last a lifetime, or none at all.

The two witches across from him sat still, but their responses were very different. Poppy had done her practical training in the hospital. She'd done this routine far more than she'd ever had wanted to. She used her own experience from similar talks to help her keep her face calm and bland. Minerva, much to Poppy's surprise, started to silently cry. The strong Scotswoman she'd known for decades broke down. There was only one thing the two women would talk of for the rest of the day: _what would they say? _

**Mind Castle-same day **

Harry walked down to the black lake's shore. Over the past day or so he'd surveyed his entire mind castle and the grounds around it. Voldemort and his blasted basilisk had caused a lot of damage; and Harry didn't need Hermione to tell him exactly how bad the boded for him. Harry breathed out a sigh, his "air" visible in the chill. His mind had always been the perfect temperature before, but now it was cold from his inability to feel warmth.

The sky was black as the darkest night, no stars and no moon. Harry's light came from the orb he'd conjured for light that floated behind him. He had candles in the castle, but he really didn't want to use them. So he'd conjured the orb. Harry knew that the destruction was very bad, the fyre had destroyed a lot of very _very _ important places in the castle, and his flames had only increased the damage. Harry knew that if he didn't figure out how to fix this whole mess he'd die. It would take him a very long time, but time flowed differently and what was a week for him could very well be a month for everyone on the other side.

Harry didn't know what to do or where to begin. So he headed towards the lake. On the other side he'd always found comfort in the dark waters and the solitude of the forest. As Harry approached the lake he noticed the water was lighter and clearer than it usually was. Not by much, but enough to be rather odd in his opinion.

_What does it matter? I've got bigger problems to solve than why the lake has changed its hue, _Harry told himself. He was about to dismiss the oddity when he experienced another. Somewhere on the other side of the lake a violin was being played. The melody was lovely but unfamiliar to the young warlock. He waded in, his bare feet—he honestly hated shoes and never wore them whilst in his castle—were rough as a hobbit's and didn't feel the sharp rocks in the lakebed. He didn't even notice his wool trousers becoming wet around the calves. He stood knee deep in the water when the violin stopped.

Harry was now very curious, he'd never heard the violin before and he had no idea why he had. It could be another person, but this was Harry's mind and no one else was here—he'd have felt it if they had been. Harry looked out into the thick darkness of the uncharted portion of his mind. After a few moments Harry returned to the shore and picked up a thin, pointed stick laying on the ground. He began to draw lines and circles in the sand.

Harry allowed himself to wander as he drew. _Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad, to stay here for the rest of my days… I wouldn't have to conform to the person they want me to be, I wouldn't have to be the boy-who-lived anymore. I'm not able to get rid of Voldemort, I had to use accidental magic and luck to save myself, so how could I possibly save anyone else?… I'd be useless if I went back, more useless than I was at the ministry, _Harry silently rambled.

He clearly remembered the events of the ministry, the moments of danger he'd put his friends in by being reckless, Sirius's death by his stupidity, the uselessness he'd had felt fighting Voldemort when he compared the duel with that of Dumbledore—who couldn't even look at him anymore he was so useless. So pathetic. Everything had changed with Cedric's death; he'd shown the world how useless he was with the death of one of his few true friends… HE couldn't save anyone. Why they all thought he was special was unknown to him. _Maybe it was because of my scar, the connection with Voldemort? That's gone now, destroyed by my purging flames, _Harry thought as he doodled.

"It's better that I can't get back, that I'll die here," he whispered to himself dropping the stick into the water. The ebb and flow of the lake water rubbing away the great palace he'd doodled. Harry sat on the ground a little ways from the shoreline, and allowed himself to recline.

_I refuse to try. If others would think it as a surrender , then they can. I don't give one damn, _he thought. He'd lie here on the shore side until his body drew its last breathe on the other side. He closed his eyes in release. He'd miss Ron and Hermione, though. Out of everyone, he felt the worst for not trying for them…but, he was tired. He was tired of the fickle people who'd pinned their responsibility on a boy and then shamed him when he failed to live up to their demands, he was tired of being this Harry and that Harry and boy, freak, warlock, boy-who-lived, the golden boy of Gryffindor, Dumbledore's boy, Potter brat, and anyone that wasn't just Harry.

Who was Harry, though? He himself didn't know. He hadn't even known his own name until his first day of school; until that point he'd been either "you" or "the boy". He'd grown up with no name, no identity, and no purpose but to serve. Hogwarts wasn't really any different: it just had different rules, duties and expectations of who he was than the Dursleys. He'd never had an opportunity to find out who he was, only what he wasn't and what everyone wanted him to be. What he was, his entire purpose revolved around being a tool, a means to an end for everyone else.

Not to say Harry didn't have a personality, just that everything that made him up, his interests and morals and desires revolved around serving a greater purpose; of being a piece to a grander puzzle. The only thing that had made him a puzzle piece in the war against Voldemort was a night where he'd used his magic to fulfil his mother's last wish—for him to live—and the strange connection that had resulted from it. That was gone, destroyed beyond retrieval, only ash remained of the basilisk.

_I'm not sorry, Ron, Hermione. I tried my best, I did what I could; but I just can't cut it. I can't save anyone, I can't even save myself. I never could, because…_

"…I'm not a whole person," Harry whispered into the chilling air by the lake. He didn't feel complete, some part of him was missing; and until he was completed he was useless. _But I'm stuck here now, and I've been looking for that missing piece since I noticed I wasn't whole. I couldn't find it, and I can't work without it, so here I am. Stuck until I die… That's alright. It's not like any of them truly understood how I felt, not even Ron and Hermione, _Harry thought with a small amount of grief. He'd told Cedric once, towards the end of the Tournament, how even when he was with his friends he felt lonely. The way he had always felt as a small child. Cedric had told him he didn't doubt it.

"_I can't imagine how lonely it is to be the most powerful person around," _Cedric had told him. Harry still only partly understood what Cedric had meant, he had more magic than even Dumbledore, he could _feel _it, but he had no way of controlling it. Still, it was raw power at best, and Harry thought that those who could control their raw magic were far more powerful. He felt tears prickle in his eyes as he remembered his dear friend—the only one to ever get close enough to understanding how Harry felt.

"What did you do to my lake?" came a deep, smooth voice. It sounded like the lake personified, but Harry knew it wasn't. Harry scrambled to his feet. His orb flaring at the increase of wariness its conjuror exuded.

Before Harry, in a boat that was reminiscent of the enchanted boats used for first years. This one was more elegant, however, and in it stood a man who looked very much the way Harry suspected he would when he was full grown. Certainly he'd never reach the height of this lithe man, and his eyes glowed green rather than being a deep turquoise, but they had the same messy dark curls and the same cream complexion. The resemblance was striking to both of them, but they were still weary of the other.

"Don't be ridiculous, the lake is my subconscious. An uncharted area of my mind," Harry said. He was always straightforward in his explanations to others. The man regarded him.

"As it is mine, so you're an invader," said the man. Harry scoffed, the man narrowed his eyes. Harry gave a crooked grin and spread his arms to indicate the area around him.

"_Does _it look like I'm invading? I was just invaded myself, and you're the one who travelled here in a boat. I didn't invade you, it's the other way around," Harry said. The man stepped out of the boat with grace and landed on the shore. _He's a muggle, so how can he—_

"I came to investigate the strange light on this side of _my _lake, which has been unnaturally tampered with. Although, it appears that your mind… Castle has been pillaged by someone," said the man as he stepped closer to the glowing orb.

"Most definitely a muggle," Harry murmured. Pillaged was rather accurate a term for the damage. However, a mage would have noted that most of the damage contained Harry's magical aura; they'd have used magical terminology, asked who he'd fought. The man's attention snapped back to him.

"What did you just call me?" the man asked in pure curiosity. He'd never heard that term before and it hadn't sounded derogatory, more like the boy had been identifying a breed of dog. Harry tensed, he hadn't meant to say that out loud. _Oh, who gives a damn. I'm going to die here, and if he crossed our subconscious than he's obviously not a normal muggle, _Harry thought and threw caution to the wind.

"I said muggle. It means non-magical person; and I suggest you don't get too close to the light. It's pure magic and will cause a lot of pain if you make it uncomfortable," Harry said dismissively. He should head back to the castle and see what he could do to clean the place up. He may be ready to die in his head; but he'd be damned if he gave Aunt Petunia the satisfaction of dying in a _filthy _mind; ruins be damned. He turned and started walking up the hill, the orb following him.

"Magic? It _does _exist? Wait! Is that how we're connected? Hey, I need more data if I'm supposed to properly deduce!" exclaimed the man who was not bounding up the hill after him. Harry turned.

"I've no idea my we're connected. It's not normal, even for mind magic… I suppose we could talk, I'll need your name. I'm Harry Potter," he said and held out a hand. He'd learned long ago to just adapt to strange situations. The man took his hand and shook it.

"Sherlock Holmes. Now, what's mind magic?"


End file.
